Moonshine: A Novel

by Alaya Johnson

  "What," said my daddy, in a clipped sort of tone that sounded like cutting knives, "have you done to my daughter?"

  Amir, apparently having come to the same conclusion about the broken vase, stood up. When he glared at my daddy, the flames in his eyes had ceased to be figurative.

  His smile was tight-lipped and feral. "Nothing she didn't want, Mr. Hollis."

  I groaned.

  "My daughter and this . . . wog, this misbegotten hell creature?"

  This proved too much for my mama. "John! We don't even know him! He might be a perfectly nice--"

  Amir barked a laugh, but the temperature in the room went down at least ten degrees. "Misbegotten hell creature, at your service."

  I felt the blush travel from my neck to my forehead. Lord, but I'd forgotten how embarrassing Daddy could be sometimes. I couldn't even bear to glance at Amir.

  "Mama," I said, "could you please take your bellicose husband back to your hotel?"

  Mama gave me a wry, self-deprecating smile that made me suddenly, unexpectedly long for our days together back in Yarrow.

  Daddy started to look rebellious but I gripped his hands and said, "Please?" in my best Daddy's-little-girl voice.

  It worked. "Bellicose. Where in seven hells did she learn words like that, Winnie? Devil knows I didn't teach her. Can't shoot fish in barrel, but Lord, if she could talk a demon to death . . ."

  I glanced down at his holsters and fingered the mother-of-pearl inlay of the one on the right. "Daddy," I said, "how sure are you I still can't shoot?"

  Daddy paused and stared at me. For a moment he just seemed surprised. Then, a smile started to wrinkle the stubble on his jaw. His laugh was small at first, then booming and good-hearted and infectious, just like I remembered it. I tried to stay angry, but it was always difficult in the face of that.

  "Zephyr," Daddy said, and hugged me. I pressed my face into his chest. He smelled like a Montanan forest and sweet pipe tobacco and gunpowder. For a moment, it was home again. "Zephyr, it's good to see you. Still can't shoot, though."

  I laughed. "You caught me."

  "I know my little girl."

  Mama tugged on his sleeve. "I think we'd better go, dear. Troy expected us a half hour ago."

  "I'll . . . ah, show them out, Amir," I said. But when I turned around I could see that something was wrong. His eyes still hadn't returned to normal and he was standing rigid as a statue. I hoped to God I was mistaken, but it seemed as though he was about to have another attack. He just nodded curtly at me and I hustled my parents out of his bedroom.

  My mother waved. "Nice meeting you . . . um . . ."

  "Amir," I said.

  "If you do anything else to my little girl--"

  I stepped on Daddy's foot and slammed the bedroom door shut before he could utter anything else.

  "We're at the Gramercy Park," Mama said, just before Daddy started the elevator. "Promise you'll stop by? We should be there for a few days at least before Troy's job."

  "And no more funny business with that damn--"

  "Bye, Daddy!" I shut the outer door.

  For a moment, I closed my eyes and enjoyed the blissful silence. It was always helpful to remember why I had left home in the first place. But after a few moments, an odd smell intruded, a whiff of something rotten in the elevator shaft. Perhaps he did need to call in the cleaners.

  I smelled him a moment before his fingers caressed my chin. That musk was unmistakable. Nothing human could smell like that, as though either he or I were about to combust. I looked up at him. His eyes were back to normal, but he seemed pale and exhausted. He acted nonchalant, with his hand behind me on the wall, but perhaps he leaned as much for support as effect.

  "Sorry about the pot," I said, preemptively.

  "Do you know how much that was worth?"

  "Would you rather he shot you?"

  Amir stared at me.

  "He's from Montana."

  "And a demon hunter. Perhaps you could have mentioned that your father's profession and my existence are historically unfriendly?"

  He was much too close. I had a hard time catching my breath. I ducked underneath his arm and walked to the chaise lounge by the window.

  "I didn't see how it could possibly be relevant."

  "Oh, you were just waiting until he started firing silver bullets at me?"

  He was still leaning against the wall, and even from several feet away didn't look very healthy. I didn't care. "I had nothing to do with that!"

  "He's your father."

  "Well, he's crazy."

  "Throwing stones, Zephyr? Your father builds a lovely glass house."

  Furious, I stalked into his bedroom to retrieve my hat and coat. "Oh, now you think I'm crazy?" I shouted over my shoulder. "Why are you begging for my help, then?"

  I jammed the cloche over my curls and attempted to properly align the buttons on my shirt. Damn genie.

  "Maybe I wouldn't have if I'd known what a raging hillbilly you had for a father."

  Amir was still beside the elevator, but his back was pressed against the wall.

  "Raging hillbilly?" I said, my voice shaking. I walked up to him and raised my hand, but he caught my wrist before I could slap him.

  "I'm being charitable. Unless you think I'm a--how did he put it?--misbegotten wog as well."

  I winced. "Amir, of course I don't. It's just . . . he's my daddy."

  His grip on my wrist relaxed. There was something warm in his eyes that I couldn't quite place. "And what am I to you, my crazy vampire suffragette?"

  Breathe. Please breathe. "I don't know," I whispered.

  He bent down and brushed my lips very gently with his. "Almost always honest," he said. "Are you still going to storm out?"

  He released me and I was immediately regretful of the loss. "I . . . I have a meeting. Nicholas. The head Turn Boy. I'm going to tutor him."

  His eyes widened. "Are you? Sporting a death wish?"

  Half of me wanted to touch him, but I took a deliberate step back and pressed the button for the elevator.

  "Just fulfilling a contract," I said.

  He winced and rested his head against the wall. Suddenly, I could see the muscles in his arms and naked torso spasm and contract. He groaned and sank to the floor.

  "Amir, are you--"

  "I think I made a mistake," he said. His voice was rough and deep. "You shouldn't do this."

  The elevator slammed to a stop. Should I leave? But what ever was wrong with Amir, there wasn't much I could do to help him here.

  "These attacks of yours, do they have something to do with Rinaldo and the Turn Boys?"

  His eyes glowed like embers. "No," he said. His voice was clouded with pain. I wished I didn't suspect that Daddy's visit had a great deal to do with it.

  I opened the door and slid back the elevator grate. "You're lying."

  He gave a hiccupping laugh. "You have no way to know that."

  "You're right," I said, stepping into the elevator, "I don't."

  Nicholas had not greeted my initial offer with enthusiasm. In fact, he'd told me to "get out of here before we bleed you." But before I'd gone three blocks, the boy himself had stopped me and said I could teach him his letters, if I agreed to meet him back in the Beast's Rum that evening by seven. I guessed he changed his mind. He had "a bit of work" to do before that, he said, and I refrained from asking for specifics. I imagined that I would find this job easier if I let as little moral squeamishness intrude as possible. It wasn't as though tutoring the head of the Turn Boys, while odious on paper, would do anything to enable their criminal activities. If anything, I told myself as I bicycled through the icy streets, expanding his mental horizons might help him understand the evil of his own behavior.

  I snorted, despite myself. Yes, Zephyr, that's why well-educated men like President Wilson sent a hundred thousand boys off to die in a war that protected the financial interests of American robber barons like J. P. Morgan. Because of his superior moral compass. />
  And what of mine? At least teaching Nicholas would do no additional harm to his victims. I had a sudden flash of Amir leaning against the wall of his apartment, pain obvious in his every movement. I had to help him.

  I skidded to a halt in front of the Beast's Rum around two minutes past seven. Nicholas was waiting for me, leaning against the open door with lidded eyes and a smile that made my heart pound like a cornered deer's. He could tell, of course. It's not much use trying to hide your fear from a vampire.

  "You're late," he said, quite mildly. I could tell that he meant for his disconcertingly young, musical voice to scare me, but instead I felt suddenly exasperated. It was like every damn man I'd spoken to for the last three days had been trying to scare me into doing something. I was sick of it. I roughly unwrapped the bike lock from the handlebars and secured it against a nearby lamppost.

  "So," I said, when the lock clicked into place. "You want to learn the alphabet in the snow, or are we going inside?"

  He grinned at me. I was reminded of chimpanzees, which are said to smile in anger instead of happiness. "Still want to do this, Florence Nightingale?"

  I just nodded brusquely and swept past him into the dank interior of the Beast's Rum. He was in front of me a moment later, laughing in his jittery pubescent voice and calling out insults to the other members of the Turn Boys inside.

  "Bruno," he said, addressing the scaled bartender I had seen the other day. "Any more of that new stuff?"

  Bruno gave me a wary glance and then shrugged his shoulders. "Not yet, Nick. Should be getting a shipment later to night. I'll have one of your boys check the Pell Street drop."

  Nicholas cocked his head to one side and collared a nearby Turn Boy. He gripped him hard around the back of his neck in a gesture that mimicked friendliness, but looked punishing.

  "Charlie," Nicholas said, his right arm draped so tightly around Charlie's neck that the boy gasped for air. "I reckon it's your turn to check the drop, right? Seeing as how you screwed up the last shipment, right, testa di minchia?" Charlie looked at least a few years older, but Nicholas's dominance was unmistakable.

  Charlie tried to get away, but Nicholas jerked around, tightening his arm on Charlie's windpipe. I winced, but stayed where I was. I'd known what I was getting into when I signed up for this, after all.

  "Nick, Nicky," Charlie croaked, "I told you, it wasn't my fault. The damn Westies set us up. I couldn't do nothing."

  "And what if the Westies set you up to night, eh? You taking a cut from them, giving away all our goods?"

  Charlie shook his head furiously. "Course not. You know I'd never do that to you, Nicholas. You're all I got. Turn Boys are my family. Nothing else."

  "Not the Westies?"

  "No!"

  Nicholas bit his knuckles, reopening a scabbed-over cut. With the other hand, he forced open Charlie's mouth. "Swear it!" Nicholas shouted. He sounded like a kid demanding a pinky promise, but I didn't laugh.

  "I swear," Charlie said. He whimpered. Softly, but the whole room had gone silent, and it was easy to hear him.

  Nicholas balled his wounded hand into a fist and let the thick, almost-black blood drip into Charlie's mouth. Charlie gagged and even I wanted to back away. The smell of fetid vampire blood is no more pleasant in a living vampire than an exsanguinated one. At least I was used to it.

  "Swallow, idiota. Maybe I'll let you have some good stuff to wash the taste from your mouth to night."

  He waited until Charlie gulped and then released him. The vampire staggered a few steps away, but no farther. He regarded Nicholas with an expression sickeningly close to worship. Perhaps he meant what he had said about the Turn Boys being his only family. What a harrowing thought.

  Nicholas laughed, and slapped Charlie on the back. I tensed, expecting another round of violence, but Nicholas's mood seemed to have shifted as easily as the wind.

  "All right, then. Sooner you get the drop, the happier we'll all be--am I right, boys?"

  And damn if every other person in the bar didn't laugh and shout their agreement like they hadn't just watched the same boy vampire shove his poisonous, fetid blood down the throat of one of their fellows. Charlie gave a quick nod and ran with that unnatural vampire speed out the door. I thought I saw his shoulders shaking slightly--he, at least, wouldn't be so quick to forget what had happened this evening.

  I was still staring at the empty door when Nicholas appeared by my elbow.

  "Unavoidable delay," he said, like an upper-class gentleman delayed by a game of croquet. "You'll teach me back here." He opened a door tucked beside the far end of the bar. His arm could barely reach the pull cord for the single electrical light. The room was small--less than even the space I shared with Aileen back at Mrs. Brodsky's. It seemed like a storage closet that someone had haphazardly cleaned out. One half was still filled with dusty crates and broken instruments, and the other half held a simple pine table and two chairs. A battered player piano rested against the far wall.

  "Do you play?" I asked.

  Nicholas slammed the door shut behind him. "I hate music."

  My heart started to race. I didn't want to trigger anything like the violent episode I'd just witnessed in the bar. I didn't have the throat of a vampire. If he tried to make me swallow his blood, I'd just die slowly and painfully.

  "I--I'm sorry," I said. "I just saw all the instruments and wondered . . ."

  Of course, it took me until now to notice they'd all been smashed, torn or shattered. Nicholas's work, I guessed.

  "My father's," he said. "He loves to play."

  Well, I'm certainly not the only person in the world with daddy issues.

  "So," I said, rubbing my hands together in what I hoped was a professional and specter-dismissing fashion, "let's get started. Do you know the alphabet?"

  Nicholas stared at me, and then sat down. "I can write my name," he said.

  I stifled a sigh. "It's a start."

  We'd struggled our way to L by the time Charlie returned with several unmarked casks from what I assumed was the Pell Street drop. The door to the main room was closed, but everyone inside was cheering his return, and the noise easily pierced the thin walls. Nicholas looked up, his eyes bright with blood fever, and I knew there was no chance of convincing him to pay attention to the rest of the alphabet. I felt exhausted and frustrated, anyway--I wasn't any closer to finding Rinaldo, and the tutoring had been tough going. Nicholas had a diffcult time understanding how letters were formed, and kept drawing them backward and upside down. Rather similar to the mistakes a young child will make while learning to write, but Nicholas had to be a few years older than I. Perhaps turning so young had irrevocably locked some parts of his brain into a childish state. He certainly had the attention span of a boy. Perhaps once I had earned more of his trust, that trait would aid me in my efforts to trick some hint about Rinaldo from him.

  Nicholas took a quick step to the door, then paused and tossed a few dollar coins on the table. "For to night. You might not want to stay here any longer. The boys can get a little rowdy with this stuff."

  Chivalry, coming from a thirteen-year-old vampire known for his cruel and senseless murders and iron grip on the streets, might seem hard to credit. And yet Nicholas was perfectly serious. It occurred to me for the first time that Nicholas didn't see himself as evil. But did anyone?

  So I said, "Of course," and followed him back into the bar.

  The room was packed now, the air filled with smoke from a hundred cigars and cigarettes. Most of the haze hovered over the bar where vampires clearly half-mad for blood were holding up silver dollars and fives and practically tossing them at Bruno. The bartender poured shots of a ruby-red drink from a black bottle. Nothing else. Charlie pushed his way through the crowd, angling toward Nicholas and me.

  "Did you hear?" he yelled, barely audible over the din.

  Nicholas frowned. "Not the Westies again?" I wondered if there was some kind of gang war brewing between Rinaldo and the Westies. Th
is was the second time I'd heard of a shipment raid, counting Giuseppe's troubles.

  Charlie took a quick step back, bumping into the crowd behind him. "No, no, drop went fine. Not a whiff of the micks. It's Dore!"

  "I told you, Charlie, I don't give a fuck what that--"

  "That's just it, Nick! He's dead! The runner told me. Popped in an alley. Sounds like it was a mess out there the other night--he said the crews scraped up at least four poppers this morning. The Boss doesn't know how it happened."

  Nicholas let off a long, giddy laugh. He lifted Charlie off the floor in a bear hug that looked strong enough to crack human ribs and then yelled, "A round on the house!"

  Charlie beat a retreat and I edged away from the roaring crowd. Against the walls, a few lucky vampires nursed their precious shots. Blood? But it seemed too bright and liquid. And certainly not alcohol. Even reckless vampires wouldn't risk exsanguinating with such gusto. Yet they seemed to be getting . . . splifficated.

  "What did you call this stuff?" I asked Nicholas as he led me to the door.

  He grinned. "I didn't, but I reckon a do-gooder like you will hear about it. Faust. And it's going to make us Turn Boys the kings of this whole damn town, just you wait."

  Faust. The blood clone mixed with an intoxicating fungus that Lily had told me about. It had hit the streets even sooner than she thought--probably outside Horace's, given the similarities between these inebriated vampires and the two I'd seen last night. Cleanup crews had dealt with no less than four exsanguinated vampires this morning. I looked around the frenzy inside the Beast's Rum. The atmosphere was charged, just an inebriated incident away from violence. Kings of the whole damn town? I had no doubt in my mind that Nicholas spoke the clear, awful truth.

  I wanted another encounter with Daddy like I wanted to fight a horde of zombies with an iron spoon, but I was afraid of what he might do if I didn't preemptively discuss a few parameters with him. And, of course, I was rather curious about what kind of commission Troy had snagged that would necessitate dragging my famous daddy all the way from Montana to help. It must be a big hunt. The Gramercy Park Hotel was more than a mile away from the Beast's Rum, but at least the ride gave me time to think. I wasn't sure what unnerved me more about Faust: the sudden, unheralded appearance of a legal drug for vampires or the fact that it would make Rinaldo and the Turn Boys the undisputed kings of Manhattan's organized crime. And where power grew, violence was never far behind.